“O wheat among the weeds! O grain among chaff! O lily among brambles! Thank him, brothers, thank him .…”
“HE HAS GIVEN HIS ANGELS CHARGE OF YOU.” (Ps 91:11) What marvelous esteem and what truly great love of charity! For who gives charge, to whom, of whom, and to what end? Let us consider this carefully, brothers, and fix diligently in our memory this very great charge…. Surely, HE HAS GIVEN HIS ANGELS CHARGE OF YOU, TO GUARD YOU. Nor do they hesitate to bear you in their hands. Sovereign Majesty has charged, and charged his angels – those sublime, those blessed beings, intimately united, closely cleaving to himself, those true members of the household of God. He has charged them with you. Who are you? ‘Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the sone of man that you should regard him?’ (Ps 144:3) As if man were not ‘a maggot and the son of man a worm.’
Now what do you think he charged them to do for you? Has he assigned them bitter tasks against you? Have they shown his power to you, as against a leaf that is snatched up by the wind and chased you like dry chaff? Did he charge them to carry off the wicked so that he should not see the glory of God? They will be charged with this one day, but this is not his charge. Do not draw away from the aid of the Most High, linger in the protection of the God of heaven, lest someday he give this charge against you. For he whom the God of heaven protects will not have this charged against him; all will be for him. And if this charge is put off till later, it is all for the sake of his elect. The provident householder says to his servants, ready and willing to go gather scattered weeds, ‘wait until the harvest, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.’ How then will the wheat be preserved until then? That clearly is the present task, the charge of the present time.
HE HAS GIVEN HIS ANGELS CHARGE OF YOU TO GUARD YOU. O wheat among the weeds! O grain among chaff! O lily among brambles! Thank him, brothers, thank him. He has entrusted to us a precious deposit, the fruit of his cross, the price of his blood. He is not satisfied with this guardianship so little sure and so very useless, so frail, so ineffective. ‘Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, he has set watchmen.’ Even those who are reputed to be walls, or pillars in the walls, need these watchmen, they most of all.
– St. Bernard, Sermons on Conversion 12, 4-5 –
